Server virtualization demand and deployments are strong and will remain so for the remainder of 2009 and through 2010, despite the ongoing economic downturn.

The results of the new, independent ITIC 2009 Global Server Virtualization Survey, which polled more than 700 corporations worldwide during May/June and August, reveal that server virtualization deployments have remained strong throughout the ongoing 2009 economic downturn. It also shows that the three market leaders Citrix, Microsoft and VMware, are consolidating their positions even as the virtualization arena itself consolidates through mergers, acquisitions and partnerships.

Microsoft in particular has made big year-over-year gains in deployments and market share. Thanks to the summer release of the new Hyper-V 2.0 with live migration capabilities the Redmond, Washington software firm has substantially closed the feature/performance gap between itself and VMware’s ESX Server. The technical advances of Hyper-V combined with the excellent conditions of Microsoft’s licensing program, make the company’s virtualization products very competitive and alluring. Three out of five — 59% of the survey respondents — indicated their intent to deploy Hyper-V 2.0 within the next 12 to 18 months.

Survey responses also show a groundswell of support for application and desktop virtualization deployments. These two market segments constitute a much smaller niche of deployments and installations compared to virtualized server environments. The survey results show that application virtualization (where Microsoft is the market leader) and desktop virtualization (in which Citrix is the market leader), are both poised for significant growth in the 2010 timeframe.

Another key survey revelation was that 40% of respondents, especially businesses with 500 or more end users, said they either have or plan to install virtualization products from multiple vendors. This will place more emphasis and importance on integration, interoperability, management and third-party add-on tools to support these more complex, heterogeneous virtualization environments.

Among the other key survey highlights:

The “Big Three,” Citrix, Microsoft and VMware, are bolstering their positions with a slew of new offerings and a plethora of partnerships due out in the 2009 summer and fall.

Partnerships and Alliances: The alliance between Citrix and Microsoft remains robust as these two firms believe that there’s strength in numbers, as they mount a challenge to server virtualization leader VMware’s continuing dominance.

Microsoft Hyper-V Closes the Gap: Microsoft made big year-over-year market share gains from 2008 to 2009. The survey data shows current Hyper-V usage at 32%; but 59% plan to adopt in next 12 to 18 months.

VMware remains the market leader in server virtualization with approximately 50% share among enterprise users; Microsoft follows with 26% share.

Microsoft is the current market leader in application virtualization with a 15% share; followed by Citrix with 11% and VMware with 7%. However, nearly two-thirds of businesses have not yet deployed application virtualization.

Citrix is the market leader in desktop virtualization with a 19% market share followed by Microsoft with 15% and VMware with 8%. But again, over 60% of corporations have not yet begun to virtualize their desktop environments.

Mergers and Acquisitions Raise Questions: There is confusion among the legacy Sun and Virtual Iron users as to what will happen to both the product lines and technical support in the wake of both firms’ acquisition by Oracle.

Apple Mac is a popular virtualization platform; nearly 30% of respondents said they use Mac hardware in conjunction with Windows operating systems to virtualize their server and desktop environments.

Parallels and VMware Fusion are the two leading Mac virtualization vendors with a near 50/50 split market share.

Time to Bargain: Despite budget cuts and reduced resources only a very small percentage of companies — 7% — have attempted to renegotiate their virtualization licensing contracts to get lower prices and better deals.

Server Virtualization Lowers TCO: Almost 50% of survey respondents reported that server virtualization lets them lower their total cost of ownership (TCO) and achieve faster return on investment (ROI); however, only 25% of businesses could quantify the actual monetary cost savings

Users Prefer Terra Firma Virtualization to Cloud: Users are moving slowly with respect to public cloud computing migrations, which are heavily dependent on virtualization technology. To date, only 14% of survey respondents said they will move their data to a virtualized public cloud within the next six-to-12 months.

This survey identifies the trends that propel or impede server, application and desktop virtualization deployments and to elucidate the timeframes in which corporations plan to virtualize their environments. ITIC advises all businesses, irrespective of size or vertical market to conduct due diligence to determine which virtualization solution or combination of products best meets their technical and business needs in advance of any migration. And in light of the ongoing economic downturn, businesses are well advised to negotiate hard with their vendors for the best deals and to ensure that the appropriate IT managers receive the necessary training and certification to ensure a smooth, trouble-free virtualization upgrade. This will enable the business to lower TCO, accelerate ROI and minimize and mitigate risk to an acceptable level.